Twenty Twenty Six. The new year is as good a time as any to attempt to write something again. There is a separate review of 2025 to this post, but as that betrays the intent of now, that’s its own post.

My attempt to ease myself into the new year has already had a bit of a knock as I’ve come down with some sort of cold or something similar. This showed its first signs at my first gig of the year (and early contender for best) – Soulwax. Regardless, the aim for this year is to have a degree more ambition and optimism more than last year.

So for step one, I’m giving this blog a bit of a touch-up. Nothing drastic for now, but a bit of a flourish with the header title (hover your mouse over it!) and a refresh of typefaces (although I’m still not completely settled on the main body typeface).

I did have a bit of a bash at the Advent of Code with Rust around the New Year, but between work and life commitments I didn’t have a vast amount of time to finish it. I’ll try and finish it off this month, even if it’s no longer appropriately festive. I’ve really enjoyed the change of approach that Rust has compared with my usual languages.

After the aformentioned Soulwax gig I’m also definitely going to fire up Logic Pro again and see if I can make some pleasing bleeps and bloops. Strudel is another thing I need to spend some time having a play with. I can’t decide if making noises in a more familiar paradigm (code, specifically JS-style) will make the process more or less accessible than trying to use a key controller in a more conventional DAW.

Finally, this month we went to see Cirque du Soleil’s Ovo. It was the first Cirque du Soleil show I’ve been to and I really enjoyed it, well beyond what I was expecting. I will say that I found the processes and routines around how they prepared the staging and rigs more engaging than the clowns, but I think that’s very much a trait of my personality.

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In Brief

Watching

• Hacks
• Traitors
• Fallout S2
• Soulwax’s Part of the Weekend Never Dies

Listening To

• Soulwax & Soulwax remixes
• The Hives
• Yonaka
• A lot of 6 Music
• Kelly Lee Owens
• Sub Focus
• Public Service Broadcasting

…and podcasts:

• Three Bean Salad
• Off Menu
• The Rest Is Science

Playing

• ARC Raiders, mainly
  • Like, overwhelmingly. Embark have made a great thing here even if the use of GenAI voice acting has been divisive to some.

Gigs

• Soulwax at Brixton Academy. Incredible.

Working On

• Defending multiple world championships¹
• Adding a dark style to this blog

Extra-Curricular Activities

• Exploring Rust more
• Making some bleeps and bloops in Logic Pro

Footnotes

1. It’s Formula 1 car launch (and build) season. I might try and find some time to put some thoughts to markdown. It’s a weird time for those in the teams that definitely contrasts the emotions of fans and those on the outside ↩